mvcrft365
Inspired by the likes of Beeple and others, I tried a “One-Render-A-Day” practice in 2013.
I thought it might be useful to give myself a weekly premise, theme, or creative brief. Here’s my personal rule set– Each week, consume one piece of media: short story, song, article, or presentation or etc… Create seven images based on that concept. Spend about 90 minutes on each image. Repeat.
I did this project before the adoption/advent of Octane and other GPU renders, so many of the striking photorealistic imagery you see in modern daily renders wasn’t really possible within the 90 minute constraint. I also did this project before it became a big trend, for better or worse. Beeple has become a bona-fide social media superstar, and his talent and level of execution is pretty astounding now. Many have been inspired to follow his lead. I found myself slipping into the trap of sharing it on social media for the gratification of clicks/likes as opposed to solving the problem or building skill, and found that aspect interesting, addictive, and dangerous. I was trying to solve a specific problem or communicate a concept in this work. I think this differentiates it from “abstract” renders. Some of the renders are okayish, but most are what they are: pretty rough sketches. I found it invigorating to get through a number of ideas and concepts relatively quickly, but also missed the research and polish phase of work, so I think dailies are useful for building up a very specific muscle. I did it for 10 weeks or so — but my last daily series actually started to become a music visualization, and I got interested in spinning out the project to something more finished, which of course, was a lot more time consuming, so I focused on that.
Week 01 “The Sentinel”
Week 05 “Academy Award Nominees”
